the US has way more golf courses than the industry and its enthusiasts can support. Once-flourishing fairways, greens, and clubhouses are being decommissioned all over the place, leaving communities with empty land, sometimes contaminated from years of intensive chemical applications designed to maintain greens and fairways in an artificially pristine condition. Can this surplus land be repurposed in a way that helps give our suburbs a stronger sense of place, that contributes nonsprawling infill development and, at the same time, better-ordered public green space and ecological services?
In her 215-page thesis developed last year at Georgia Tech, architecture and city planning master's candidate Audrey L. Plummer examined the potential for repurposing a closed golf course in DeKalb County, Georgia. She found that a high-density, mixed-use concept supported by the nearby community for the central portion of the site would be financially infeasible because it is located too far from the city center and significant transportation infrastructure.
